compact is very new so there is an intent on the state level to help military families but sometimes that hasn't filtered down to the local school districts. so we are working in that education effort to try to get more information out to the local school districts so that they do what their state has said they will do >>kurt volker examines the nato alliance in libya and political unrest in other countries. someone will talk about the 2010 census figures that show only

45% of americans were working in 2009, the state of the u.s. economy, in the future of job creation. washington journal by that 7:00 eastern on c-span. -- life at 7:00 eastern on c- span. >> the budget debate in washington is the focus of the weekly addresses. president obama outlined his deficit reduction plan. then you will hear the republican addressed by senator tom coburn. he discusses the plan passed friday by the house, which was sponsored by budget committee chairman paul ryan. it also aims to cut the odds -- government spending. >> this week i laid out our plan for the fiscal fitch -- future. it reduces spending and brings down the deficit, putting americans back on track for paying down our debt. we know what the challenge is so critical. if we do not act, the rising tide of borrowing will damage

our economy, costing us jobs and risking our future prosperity by sticking our children with the bill. at the same time, we have to take a balanced approach. an approach that protect the middle class, our commitments to seniors, and job-creating investments in things like job creation -- in education and clean energy. it has to be based on the values of shared responsibility and shared prosperity. one plan put forward by some republicans and aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. while i think their goal is worthy, i believe their vision is wrong for america. at a time when other nations are hustling to out compete as for the jobs and businesses or tomorrow, they want to make drastic cuts in education, infrastructure, and clean energy -- the very investments we need. in order to reduce the deficit,

we have to end medicare as we know it, because the medicaid that would lead -- that would leave many without the care they need. even as this plan proposes these drastic cuts, it would also get $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest 2% of americans. an extra $200,000 for every millionaire and boehner in the country. i do not think that is right. i do not think it is like to ask seniors to pay more for health care or as students to postpone college just so we do not have to ask those who have prospered so much to give back a little more. we all need to share in the sacrifice. we do not have to sacrifice the america we believe in. that is why i have proposed a balanced approach that matches that $4 trillion in deficit reduction it calms the entire budget for savings and ask everyone to do their part.

i have called on distress -- democrats and republicans. that is how we balance our budget before. that is how we will do it again. we will build on the things we made in last week's agreement law creating -- while protecting job-creating investments. of the last two years, the secretary of defense has taken on wasteful spending that does nothing to protect our troops or our nation, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. i believe we can do that again. we will strengthen medicare and medicaid to common-sense reform that would get rid of wasteful subsidies. we will reduce spending in our tax code with tax reform that is they are and simple. the amount of taxes you pay does not depend on how clever an account that you can afford. we should end the tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. people like me do not need

another tax cut. that is my approach to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 years while protecting the middle class, keeping our promise to seniors, and securing our investments in our future. i hope you'll check it out for yourself at whitehouse.gov. for the first time ever, there is a chance for you to see exactly how your tax dollars are spent. going forward, democrats airport -- and republicans in washington will have our differences. you expect us to bridge the differences. you expect us to work together and get this done. i believe we can. i believe we can live within our means and the but to the values we share as americans. in the weeks to come, i will work with anyone who is willing to get it done. thank you for listening and have a great weekend. >> hello. i am tom coburn from oklahoma.

this was a historic week in washington. for the first time in more than 15 years congress, under the leadership of house republicans, is making significant spending cuts. while they are not nearly enough, the american people should be encouraged. you have fundamentally changed the debate in washington. instead of increasing spending, congress is cutting spending. that is a monumental shift for washington. republicans have also changed the culture of congress. your marks, the bridge for nowhere, and it was not a museum or a thing of the past. five years ago congress passed port projects worth $29 million. this year we are on pace to have zero year marks -- in march. our nation is facing a $14.30 trillion national debt that our own military leaders call the greatest threat to our national security. in these challenging times, we

need real leadership. as americans, there is not a problem we cannot solve if we are together. unfortunately, president obama took us three steps backwards. instead of describing the threat in bringing both sides together, the president attacked those who of the different vision. as leaders we have a moral obligation to tell the country the truth. the truth is is that we face a serious debt crisis sooner than anyone expected. we face an unsustainable debt and honest as that -- an unsustainable entitlement programs. they will all collapse that not reform. the international monetary fund warned our country to get our fiscal house in order quickly before investors lose faith in our ability to repay our debts. if investors don't are bonds which finance our deficit spending on everything from social security, benefits, and

military spending our economy could go into a tailspin. we would see interest rates skyrocket. that would harm consumers and add to our debt. we have already seen the largest bond mutual fund sell all its holdings of treasury bills. we are seeing troubling times of inflation. energy prices continued to rise. what we need to avert a debt crisis is real leadership and specific solutions, not campaign-style political attacks. unfortunately the president failed to put a serious proposal on the table. for instance, this plan includes a debt failsafe. the entitlement spending accounts for more than 80% of our long-term debt burden. the president's plan exempts these programs from reform. by pretending that medicare, medicaid, social security are sound financially, the president

is jeopardizing the benefits for the very americans he was to protect. he also proposed expanding his failed health care law that will cost americans now over $2.60 trillion between now and the next 10 years. that makes our debt problem more difficult to solve. the president wants to strengthen the board of unaccountable medical source and give them more power to impose control and ration care. house budget committee chairman paul ryan seems to be the real target of the president's speech. his plan would save $6.20 trillion over 10 years, and outlines a path for prosperity, not austerity. he would save medicare by giving all bidders this year's series access to high-quality health plans. they are similar to the plants and members of congress enjoy. medicaid safety nets would be strengthening by a transitioning

to block grants that empower states to provide care. as a physician, i note that medicaid as it is currently structured is oftentimes a disaster for patients. nearly half of physicians do not accept medicare payments because reimbursement rates are so low. not surprisingly, patients on medicaid have poor health, higher rates of infant mortality, and more complications after major sec urged -- surgery. in the america i know, we liberate citizens from failing programs that denied them choice, dignity, and care. the press that's plan forces 24 million americans into a failing medicare program that routinely denies care to patients who have no other option. the president also underestimated how much we could save by going after waste, fraud, and the beast. we have identified more than

$350 billion in annual waste in the federal government. the president says -- when it comes to waste and duplication at the federal government level, we do not need a scalpel. we need a chain saw. the president walked away from serious bipartisan compromise on tax reform reached by his very own deficit commission on which i served. lower tax rates for everyone produces the race by stimulating real economic growth. the president's plan undermines our bipartisan agreement. as someone who has spent most of my 63 years outside of politics, i know there is not a problem we cannot solve if we do it together. but the only way we can solve them is to put our political careers on the line and stop engaging in political attacks. to my republican colleagues, i often ask what good is the

republican party without a republic? to my democratic colleagues, i say what if we do not have a economy to sustain it? as long as you stay engaged and hold washington accountable, we will address the challenges ahead and secure the blessings of liberty for future generations. may god bless you and our great country. >> next, a senate hearing on crime victims. then a discussion about net neutrality. after that, a senate hearing on the 2012 budget for nasa. >> on april 12, 1861, confederate forces attacked fort sumter in south carolina, igniting the civil war. the nation can rates at the 150th anniversary of the bombardment. american history tv brings you the sights and sounds from fort sumter and charleston with a special look at wartime life in the 1860's as well as

interviews with civil war scholars and reactors from the north and south. get the complete we can schedule at c-span.org/history. >> the senate judiciary committee held a hearing wednesday in support of national crime victims' rights week. support was expressed for the truck crime victims' fund. witnesses included representatives from the justice department and counselors to work with victims of crime. this is one hour 25 minutes. >> good morning. i apologize. things with the budget and all have been a little bit mixed up on schedules. senator grassley and i have been

going three different directions trying to get things scheduled all at once. i appreciate the people who are here. we had one other witness from vermont, but has a family emergency and she will not be here. but this week is the 30th annual national crime victims rights week. i was here in the senate in the first one and i thought how overdue it was 30 years ago to begin, and fortunately we've kept it going. we recognize the losses suffered by crime victims and their families. we acknowledge the hard work being done helping people rebuild their lives after tragedy hits. it would be a cruel irony if there were the week the crime victims unit was gutted as was suggested. this is a vital resource for crime victims for some short sighted, short-term advantage. i know the needs.

i've seen the needs. i saw it as a prosecutor and i've seen it as a senator. for nearly three decades, the crime victims fund has played a central role in providing help to describing victims. we created the fund add the victims of crime act of 1984. it's been the primary way the federal government supports describing victims and their families. if the assistance and compensation programs have served nearly 4 million crime victims each year. it costs the taxpayers nothing. it's supported by fines and penalties paid by federal criminal 0 fepdsers not by taxpayer dollars. i've always thought the irony is we can -- we have a victim of a serious crime, we can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes very necessary to prosecute the person who do it, to lock them up, to keep them there, and the victim is told

you're on your own. something is upside down in a case like that. it's almost like they victimized twice. after the tragedy, you recall in oklahoma city, i worked with this committee and the appropriations committee to be sure there would be funds available to help victims of mass violence and to provide a rainy day reserve. so we did this because nobody can predict with certainty in advance, certainly couldn't predict having like oklahoma city. instead of distributing all the funds collected the previous year, we have a trust fund with deposits retained so in leaner years, crime victims advocates are not left stranded without resources, or recently some, including former president bush, sought to go in the trust fund,

take the reserves. i worked hard and got senators from both parties to work with me to protect the fund. assure the reserves were preserved for their intended purpose and only one helping crime victims. i remain committed to maintain that reserve. i want to make sure increased funds are there. no less than social security an other trusts the american people have established. the crime victims fund represents our commitment to crime victims. it should be respected and honored. it can't be used just as some kind of convenient piggy bank. so this committee considers what the federal government has been doing to support the lives who has been affected by crime. what more we can do to renew this vital commitment. these efforts have never been more important than they are today. difficult economic times have stretched our state and local services. including victims services to the breaking point.

that's in virtually every state in this country. families made more vulnerable by financial stress, struggle more than ever to overcome the emotional, financial and physical damage caused by crime. they need help. the theme of this year's crime victims rights way, reshaping the future honoring the past is appropriate. let's talk about what we've accomplished in 9 past three decades, determine what is needed ahead. as a country, we have made great strides in three decades to address the needs of describicr victims but we can do more. crime changes. we have to adapt. we have identity theft, mortgage -- nobody really thought 30 years ago the problems of identity theft. we didn't have the internet and all these other things. victims of these crimes have unique needs.

the elderly, they make up an increasing population of our communities, they are being targeted with freighter frequencies. they often require specialized service to recover from abuse and exploitation. the greater need for legal services to help crime victims. immigration, the financial consequences of crime. transitional housing services, more essential than ever for crime victims in difficult times. also is the criminal justice committee becomes increasingly and appropriately focused on evidence based research, it's becoming ever clear how much more data we need about crime victims, who they are, how they're victimized, what need they have, what services help. you have this kind of comprehensive research it's going to make it a lot more easier for states to tailor their needs. i know our witnesses have been thinking about these issues. i look forward to learning from

their experience. i'm sorry, as i said, amy far serves as victims advocate for the attorneys office couldn't be here. she'll submit her written testimony. i want to thank robert polini. he's chairman of the board of the vermont center for crime victim services for attending this. i would like to make a personal note, bob, you help us in vermont all the time. you make me extraordinarily proud what you do. you've always about there. with that, senator grassley. >> i think you and i agree on this subject, so i don't know whether i need to speak or not. every senator wants to say it himself, right? i also want to notify, i've got 10:30 time reserved on the floor of the senate so i'll be absent a little while.

thank you for this hearing. thank you to the witnesses as well. crime victims deserve better than what they've been getting. they receive assistance from this crime victim's fund. it's not dependent on tax revenue. it's funded for the purpose of helping crime victims and it comes from fines and penalties paid by those convicted. for more than a decade there's been a cap on the amount of fund each year that can be distributed to victims. the chairman and i recently wrote a letter to the budget committee in which we asked that the cap of the year be raised more than 30% from current levels. that is a much larger increase than is proposed by the administration. the cap illustrates the problems with so many federal grant programs, programs get created, sometimes they duplicate existing programs. they do not get fully funded so the effectiveness of the program is often not as strong as it could be. we should be cautious about

creating new programs, mr. chairman, for victims until we raise the cap to funding existing programs the way they ought to be funded. the failure to adequately raise the cap means the number of victims 0 who receive assistance under an existing program has fallen in recent years. it's not right nor is it right to talk about new programs until existing ones and the victims who benefit from them receive the adequate support, especially support that does not derive from taxpayer dollars. the administration is following a different path, however. they have not proposed raising the cap by nearly enough. it is this sort of gamesmanship with the voca funds that have let crime victims down. the organizations thereof throughout the country. instead, the fund has built up an unobligated balance of over

$6 billion. the limited disbursement has led to the creation of additional grant programs to provide service to victims. these grants break the formula of the voca fund by using taxpayer funds to fund victim programs instead of funds placed in the voca fund from convicted criminals. another consequence of this cap is highlighted in the forth coming continuing resolution that was recently negotiated by the president and the congress. unfortunately, the proposal includes a number of budget gimmicks that are more slight of hand than budget cuts. one of those gimmicks impacts the voka fund. nearly $5 billion in unobligated balances held in this fund is rescinded to the general treasury. all the money we have been supposedly holding on to for victims has now gone to pay for spending in other programs that haven't been cut. this is the wrong policy.

if we're serious about cuts, we should cut spending, not simply writing that spending off with nontaxpayer dollars from this fund. i have concerns with the president's budget for fiscal year 2012 and the way it deals with crime victims. the president has proposed zeroing out an important existing program, the federal victim notification program. this program notifies victims when the perpetrator will be released from incarceration. congress passed a list of victims' rights which includes the right to be notified of the release of criminal offenders who harm them. apparently the fiscal year 2012 budget does not recognize this basic victim right. until just last week, the administration was willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try a terrorist in downtown manhattan but opposed spending 7 million to notify crime victims that the person who harmed them will be

released. it is against this backdrop of tough budget decisions that we must address the issue of the voca cap along with duplication, overlap and fraud in grant programs. while i strongly support pushing more money out to the victims and support groups which is the money from the people convicted of a crime, i believe we need to take a hard look at other grant programs. i think we need a comprehensive review of grant programs to review where savings can be achieved. i would note the testimony of mary lou leary from the department of justice supports my call for a review. she states "we need rigorous evaluations of victim service programs to learn what works and what doesn't work." i agree, especially in light of the fact that in the last ten years, the inspector general has found serious problems with many of the individual grantees funded by the department of justice. the inspector general has reviewed 19 grants involving funding for victim programs.

of those 19, the inspector general found 15 contained unallowable costs, unsupported documentation and other problems. one stunning example, this report examined the legal assistance for victims grant program administered by community legal aid society in delaware. the inspector general found the grantedee was in material noncompliance with grant requirements, further because of the deficiencies, the inspector general questioned over $829,000 which accounted for 93% of the grant. here we are, given the dire fiscal situation, the federal government faces is more important than ever to ensure the federal dollars are spent in an efficient way, as we study how to provide victims of crime receive the help they deserve, we need to examine the sources of funding as well as how the grantee utilize those funds. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator

grassley. we will begin with mary lou leary, who is no stranger to this committee. she's the principal deputy assistant to the department of justice. has held that position since september of 2009. prior to rejoining the department in may of 2009, she served as executive in terms of the national center for victims of crime and we talked to her that time too. she's also previously held a number of positions with the department of justice, serving as united states attorney for the district of colombia. we have one other united states -- former united states attorney on this committee, with senator whitehouse. deputy associate attorney general, earned her bachelor's at syracuse university, master's at ohio state, her law degree at

northeastern university school of law. mr. leery, good to have you here? >> it's a pleasure, senator leahy. chairman leahy and distinguished members of this committee, thank you so much for inviting me here today. i'm leapleased to talk about wh we do in order to fulfill our obligations to victims of crime. the department of justice's office of justice program has a broad mission, but it includes providing resources and leadership to support key services for crime victims. my own personal commitment goes well beyond the office of justice programs as the senator just said. i was a former united states attorney in the district of columbia and a local prosecutor in massachusetts. i've been working with victims pretty much my entire career. i'm very proud to have served as the director of the national center for victims of crime,

national non-profit here in washington. as you know, this is national crime victims rights week. just last week, the attorney general at a special ceremony honored men and women from across this country who have devoted their lives to serving victims of crime. several of the people who were honored actually were victims themselves and had used that experience to help others. the stories that they told remind us that crime victims must never be forgotten. justice for victims is justice for all. i don't think there's any better example of that kind of commitment than what we've seen in arizona in the wake of the shootings there. i'm proud to be on the same panel with kent burbank who has done so much to help pima county and the state of arizona to recover. this is the 30th anniversary of the first national crime victims rights week as the senator said.

during this reagan centennial year, we should really honor that part of his legacy, which is lesser known than other aspects of his administration. 30 years ago, victims were almost entirely overlooked. they had no rights. they had very little support. so 1982, president reagan commissioned the task force on victims of crime. they held hearings across this nation and actually several of my colleagues at the u.s. attorneys office in d.c. staffed that commission. their findings led to the establishment of the office for victims of crime in 1983 and then in 1984, the voca statute was passed into law that created the crime victims fund which senator leahy has described for us. since then, more than $8 billion from the crime victim's fund has been distributed to states and

communities. what does that mean in human terms? it means that 2 million victims have received comment says and more than 67 million victims have received counseling, courtroom advocacy, temporary housing and other services. funds have also been used to aid other victims of terrorism and to train thousands of victim service providers. every year, 87% of the crime victims fund allocations go directly to the states. believe me, those funds are sorely needed in these budget times. last night, thinking about the hearing, i was re-reading the 1982 task force report. ironically, it cited that very same fact, 30 years ago. they said these are tough budget times. states are having to cut back and victim service providers are suffering. so here we are, deja vu all over

again. we would like to assume, of course, that all victims will be taken care of, but that's simply not the case. especially for elderly victims, victims of financial fraud, human trafficking, crimes against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. just like 30 years ago today, 51% of violent crimes still go unreported. exact same statistic. crime victimization itself is changing with the add vents of technology. it actually makes the criminals more anonymous and the victims are harder to identify. victim services must change. that is the goal of vision 21. it's a marvelous initiative of the office for victims of crime at the department of justice. they're undertaking a

comprehensive analysis of crime victim services, who are the victims, what do they need? how can we serve them better? how can we serve them smarter? several themes have emerged from that. one of the most powerful is the need for wraparound services for victims of crime. victims need legal services. they need civil legal assistance. they need legal assistance in the criminal justice system. all kinds of support mechanisms. another major theme of vision 21 is technology. how can we use technology to better serve victims? how can we better understand the technology that is used in victimization? the vision 21 recommendations will be fleshed out in a full report and i can't wait to share that report with this committee. please be assured that the

department of justice will not waver in its dedication to serving victims of crime. we welcome any suggestions about how our efforts can be improved. thank you so much. >> thank you. it is interesting. i remember my conversations with president reagan during this time of his interest in this area. it was extremely helpful to get the bipartisan support we needed for the legislation. kent burbank is a director of the victim services division of the pima county attorneys office in tucson. he has held that position since 2007. i was surprised in this number, you and your staff served nearly 8,000 crime victims a year. of course the one that everybody in america saw was at the january 8 shooting of congresswoman gabrielle giffords and 18 others. mr. burbank and his office

coordinated dozens of victim advocates to support the victims and the families at the crime scene. in recognition of his work and response to the horrible tragedy and other good work, he received the 2011 arizona attorney generals distinguished service award. he's worked for more than two decades in local social and human services. he has a master's degree in social service administration from the university of chicago. i hope you can continue to help crime victims out there, mr. burbank. everybody out there, and i'm sure you especially hope you'll never have another situation like the one you had in january. please go ahead, sir. >> thank you. good morning, mr. chairman and honorable senators. my name is kent burbank and i'm the director of the vic sim services division in tucson, arizona. on january 8, our close knit

community was shaken at the shooting that took place at congresswoman giffords event. that left six people dead, 13 injured. over 100 witnesses in shock and pan you can and a community stunned. victim advocates from our office were among the first responders. within minutes we had several advocates on scene and we had 35 advocates deployed across tucson, including the four hospitals that were receiving the wounded. i was at the crime scene, along with pima county attorney barbara luwall coordinating our advocacy efforts. throughout the day and night, we worked with literally hundreds of victims, witnesses and their family members providing them with crisis intervention services and emotional support. on more than one occasion, our advocates had to deliver the difficult news that their loved

one had been killed. angela robinson is the daughter of two of the january 8 shooting victims. her mother was gravely wounded and her father was killed. angela described how incredibly difficult the day was for her and her family. she told how her sister and brother-in-law "raced to the safe way, ran through the carnage frantically looking for mom and dad. while mom talked to her sister on the cell phone and dad laid dying on her lap. her brother found his grandmother covered in blood. angela said to me, victim services was beside them. victim services provided the trauma counselor to guide my precious loved ones not only through grief and loss but extreme violent trauma. this is a testament to having highly trained, experienced and professional victim advocates in our communities.

with over li35 years of experience, ours was the first of the kind in the nation. over the years, we have been called out to work with natural disasters and terrorism, including the oklahoma city bombings and 9/11. we have 20 volunteers that allow us to do this work. the pima county attorneys office has been fortunate to receive an anti terrorism and emergency assistance grant to help us meet the ongoing needs of the january 8 tragedy victims over the next self-years as the case moves through the court. without these funds, our resources would have been strained to meet all of the needs. the downturn in the economy has put a tremendous strain on our partner service organizations in the community. nationally, most of the newly founded legal clinics for victims are in crisis.

since 2004, when congress passed the justice for all act, which enumerated the rights for federal crime victims and included funding for the enforcement of these rights, 11 clinics have opened across the country. despite their successes virtually all of these will be closed by the end of the year without further action. in arizona, the recession has meant significant decrease in state and local funding for victim services and for victims. there has been a 42% reduction in state funds for domestic violence services and shelters since 2008. tucson's primary domestic service agency, emerge center for domestic abuse lost 24% of its funding over the last couple of years. sara jones, the executive director said to me, our shelter beds are full, our phone lines are ringing day and night and we're turning away 10 to 12

women a week. it's difficult to get medications that are a direct result of their victimization. foreclosures and cuts to housing assistance has forced domestic violence victims to sleep in their cars. during these times, communities depend on victim compensation funds provided by voca and voawa. this should be the time when they should be increasing funds. voca funds come from fees and other assessments on criminals, not tax dollars. increasing this fund cap would immediately result in more funds flowing to the victims who most need them. it is not only the compassion nat and right thing to do, but it makes financial sense. if these funds don't come from criminal activity, they will

most likely come from local communities and state governments who will pay them in the form in higher unemployment claims, medicare and medicaid costs and community health services. >> arizona we are fortunate to benefit from some of the robust victim rights statutes in the nation. these rights make a real difference in the lives of victims affording them a measure of fairness, digny and respect in a system that is confusing and overwhelming. these rights co-exist with the rights of the accused. victims rights statutes are in advance over the days when victims were left uninformed from courtrooms and denied the ability to confer with prosecutors. more work needs to be done. we know that these rights and protections are incomplete and inconsistent across the nation. so it is crucial that we finish

the work begun by president reagan's task force on victims of crime. we should carry out its recommendation for a federal constitution amendment recognizing victim's rights and providing uniform protection for all americans. i want to end with the words of suzy highlyman, one of the victims of the january shooting, i could not have managed to sit in the arraignment without victim's services. you anticipated my fears and tears and had people surrounding me. you answered my questions and told me the truth. you are my touch stone in an otherwise unwieldy and overwhelming process. i couldn't have done it without you. thafrpg you. >> thank you very much, mr. burbank. meg garvin is currently the executive director of the national crime victim law institute, clinical professor of law at the louis and clark law school. she also chairs the oregon task

force, serves on the legislative policy committee, the oregon sexual assault task force, serves as co-chair of the american bar association criminal justice sexual victims committee, under graduate of the university of puget sound, master's of the university of iowa, law degree from the university of minnesota law school. i don't have to remind senator klobuchar. i'm surrounded by people from minnesota today. go ahead, ms. garvin. >> thank you. it's a good way to be surrounded. mr. chairman, distinguished members, thank you so much for having me here today. it is quite an honor to be here on the 30th national crime victims rights week. i want to talk about the theme of this year's week, which is reshaping the future honoring

the past. i want to spend time on that theme because we've made commitments to victims. the history of victims in this country, going back more than 30 years, if we go back to the founding shows that victims were an integral part of our criminal justice system from the start. yet sometime over the years, at some point, they became mere witnesses to cases and pieces of evidence in those cases. that was shown quite dramatically in the 1970s and early 80s when they were asked to sit outside courtroom doors, peek through cracks to see what happened. vince roper was literally told to sit outside during the trial of the offender in that case. that was happening in every case. it was happening in homicide cases, sexual assault cases, domestic violence cases. it was happening throughout the 70s and 80s in that victims were

mere pieces of evidence in the case. they were not treated with humanity and dignity. to remedy that imbalance, fortunately, a lot of laws have been passed. they've been passed in every state. more than 30 states. 33 have passed state con constitutional amendments. every state has passed a statutory system to afford victim's rights. when you look nationally, the rights vary greatly. quite literally we have what i call, when i do more more informal training, judge judy, judge joe effect. you have different rights depending on which judge you're in front of. it can happen within a state, across state borders and state versus federal. you're treated differently. fortunately efforts at the federal level have passed statutes that have aallowed for some similarity of treatment, some fairness to happen for victims regardless of what system they're in. the key piece of that

legislation was the federal crime victims act of 2004. that provides eight specific rights to crime victims to allow them practice pa toer status in the system. the rights are owned by the victim. they get to assert them when they want. they get to say what they want when they need to say it. the first circuit court that analyzed was kenna. that court said the cbra was changing the modern criminal justice system assumption, the assumption that crime victims should be save like good victorian children, seen but not heard. we have a law that have victims not only seen but heard in the system. notably, the cbra contains rights but authorizes funding for appropriations for legal services to make sure they have meaning. having legal services to protect rights is critical as the u.s. supreme court has even said, the right to be heard would be in

many cases of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. even the intelligent and educated layman has small and no skill in the science of law. having a lawyer sitting next to you makes a difference in court proceedings. the u.s. supreme court was saying in 1932 about defendant's rights, but it has no less meaning or weight when you think about victim's rights. in the case i referenced a minute ago, kenna versus district court, mr. kenna was trying to exercise his right to be heard. the only way his right to be heard was because he had pro bono counsel sitting next to him and he took an appeal to the ninth circuit court of appeals. where did that come from? a national network of victim attorneys. what started as five clin you iks in 2004 is 11 clinics operating across the country. since its launch, that network represented more than 4,000 victims, filed 23 hundred pleadings and supplied more than

100,000 hours of attorneys time to victims in this country. sadly, as kent said, this network is in jeopardy, all 11 clinics will shut this year. there will be no legal services for enforcement of victim's right if funding continues as it is. the impact of these closures is going to be significant. as of march 31st, the clinical network had 285 open criminal cases in this country. the impact of those numbers is little more meaningful if you look at the people being served. one of the victims being served is in the tucson shooting case. our arizona clinic is representing one of the victims in that case, seeking justice and making sure that that victim can exercise his rights when he needs to and in the manner in which he wants to. another clinic is representing a victim in the case of united states v kiefer. in that cases, it's a complex fraud case. the victim was not even notified of proceedings because those proceedings had been under seal. the victim didn't know if they

were a victim, weren't a victim, whether restitution was going to be ordered or not until a pro bono attorney stood next to them and fought for the right of restitution. they succeeded but now defendant has filed a habous action and is challenging it again. congress made a promise to victims, a promise that funds would be available and services would be available. in 2004, congress made another promise to victims that they would have rights in the criminal justice system and would not be mere interlopers on the system anymore. vision 21 is a wonderful project that the offers for victims of crime is using to envision. we are fully committed to that effort and a better future. notably, as has already been said, one of the key findings coming out of vision 21, they must have access to competent lawyers. the answer coming back is the

very one that congress articulated in 2004, fund legal services for victims of crime. this promise can be kept. it can be kept because while there's a cap set on voca, the limits of that cap can be raised. it seems indisputable that there are insufficient funds in voca to fund other services necessary across the country. i urge congress to critically look at the promises that have already been made to victims in this country and uphold those promises including legal services for victims. thank you. >> thank you. i thank all the panel. i read your statements earlier and the whole statements are in the record, but i hope people are listening. i'm glad that many are, because senator grassley, he and i both agree on this is not a partisan issue. you know, we don't -- you don't

ask whether a crime victim is a republican or democrat or independent. they are a victim. again, we have several former prosecutors on this panel. senator clklobucar. mr. burbank, the whole country's heart goes out to your community and the people whose lives are changed forever. those who survived, their lives have changed forever from january 8th. something like that is overwhelming. it can quickly deplete victim services funds. to help the communities be able to provide ongoing services when you have something extraordinary like this happened.

i worked after the oklahoma city bombing to create the anti terrorism and emergency assistance program. i worked with senators on both sides of the aisle and we got it done. sets aside funds from the crime victims fund to be used in emergency situations like the tragedy in tucson. i understand pima county recently received $1.7 million from that emergency fund, is that right? >> that's correct. >> what is that going to do? >> it's going to help us enormously. as you can -- as you were mentioning, these types of situations can very quickly overwhelm the services that are available, because already, we're operating on a very stretched budget. so to have suddenly this magnitude of victims in our community that are needing additional services means that we need to be able to ramp up and ramp up very quickly. having this grant that we have just received from the

anti-terrorism that are set aside in voca and will be incredibly beneficial in the upcoming years. that is the benefit of this. these will provide funds over the next three to four years as these cases move through the court system. >> it was interesting, when i thought to put that money in, i prayed it would never be necessary to use it. we all do. never could have anticipated something to happen there, but we've also had other horrific situations in other parts of the country. i don't want to put words in your mouth, but, and not just because i helped create the fund, would you suggest we keep that fund? >> absolutely. of course. you don't need to put words in my mouth. >> would have been a heck of a hearing if you said no. >> if i said no, that would be terrible, wouldn't it? obviously, it's an incredibly important piece. being able to access funds very quickly in an emergency

situation makes all the world of a difference. we are most grateful for your wisdom and foresight in being able to create this fund to begin with. the work with the office of justice programs, novc to access those funds quickly through a special process. so thank you. >> thank you. ms. garvin, you talked about changes in crime victimization. those perhaps some gaps in crime victim services. what are some of these changes. what are the kind of gaps it might create? >> well, i'm sure you remember from your days as a prosecutor, as i do, that i always felt like the criminals were way ahead of law enforcement all the time. on technology and everything else. that's continuing. we are seeing criminals becoming increasingly anonymous. victims harder to identify

because of things like financial fraud, all the myriad of schemes that you read about in the financial news every single day. sometimes, we don't even recognize these crimes, because people don't understand the instruments that are being used. there's all kinds of technology being used to stalk individuals. it goes way beyond the internet, although that certainly has proliferated all kinds of cyber crime. child exploitation on the internet is absolutely appalling, very widespread. a friend of mine who's the inspector general for the new york city school system told me that he used to really worry about teachers having access to kids, teachers who shouldn't have been in the classroom in the first place. now, he said it is almost

impossible to deal with that, because these folks are having contact with the kids online. you can't really monitor that. so there are all kinds of technological challenges that we're just beginning challenges we're just beginning to recognize. and of course, the side of that is how can we use technology to our own advantage as law enforcement and particularly as victim service providers. you want to talk to a 15-year-old victim, they're unlikely to chat with you on the phone. you got to be able to do the texting and the tweeting and all kinds of chatting with kids online. you need to be able to use smart phones and cell phones and webinars. all kinds of things that, quite frankly, i imagine sitting here right now. but i'm sure within the next

five years. >> skype. you can sit there and -- >> absolutely. look at like telemedicine. >> grandparents and everything and everybody else does. professor garvin talk about the victims rights how it has legitimized victims' rights and one of the ways we're trying to strengthen the reauthorization act, i have to go to a different hearing. i want to recognize senator franken before i do. but senator, who has done this more than -- quite often, i appreciate it, is willing to take the helm. thank you. just be sure to give it back.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. ms. leery, i want to start with you today. i've been hearing such tremendous things about the work that you've been doing in your department to help states and local agencies and the office of justice programs has raved about your office, how great a partner it's been on victims' services. it said you really went out of your way to reach toout to minnesota to see how you can help and you've been incredibly flexible and supportive. so i want to say thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> minnesota has long been a leader in innovative domestic violence programs in the city of st. paul recently came up with a blueprint for domestic violence intervention strategies that really should be a model for how criminal justice agency can work together. making sure that programs are

reliant on evidence-based decisionmaking that guarantees that every dollar we spend is being used to fund programs that are proven to work. can you tell me more about what the government is doing to promote evidence-based decisionmaking and ensuring that other states have access to the innovative programs and strategies being designed in places like st. paul? >> certainly. and minnesota does have a long and rich history of serving victims of crime. i know senator wellstone was significantly involved in that. in terms of the evidence-based approach and disseminating that kind of information, i'm particularly pleased -- this is a big priority at the department of justice overall and throughout the office of justice programs, but i'm particularly pleased to see that we're moving in that direction in victims

services as well. you know, it started out as a movement, kind of grassroots advocates, volunteers and all about passion and compassion for victims. and it's evolved much more of a professional feel, we'll never lose the passion, we'll never lose the compassion, but it's been professionalized as well. and like the rest of the justice system, victims services has got to work smarter. we have to base what we do on what we know from research and from statistics. so the -- i think the most significant thing that we're doing right now is an intersiex called vision 21 where the victims of crime has convened and a comprehensive effort to look at victims services to see who are the victims, what are we doing to serve them? where are the gaps in that

service? what are the emerging challenges, the new types of victimization, new types of victims and so on. and how can we build the capacity of victim service providers across the country to serve these victims. obviously, if this is going to be evidence-based, the key is that we've got to do more research. we have to collect better data. we have the national crime victimization survey which is a wonderful tool, but it's not adequate for the task. there's some types of crime where that kind of survey doesn't really get at the nuances. and there are all kinds of other statistics that need to be gathered. for instance, you need to do a lot more research. you certainly know from your experience in your state that

the violent crime and the domestic violence and sexual assault crime rate in indian country are absolutely unacceptable. we've never put up with that in any other community in this country. and we don't really even know the half of it. because it's unreported because we haven't done enough. that's the kind of thing that we need to do, so that when you plot the strategy for victims services going forward, you have a solid base of knowledge. you know -- you have your data, you have your research on what works with victims. you have your research on the characteristics of victims, the needs both now and in the future, and then you can tailor your programs and you can apply your dollars wisely. >> well, thank you. i just have a few seconds left. but i agree with you on the indian country and in the indian

affairs committee, i tried to address that and increased data collection on crime in indian country. madam chair, can i ask one more? >> please do. >> thank you. i like most americans was horrified by what happened in tucson, but i have to say the services you and your team of staff and volunteers were able to provide to the families and friends and witnesses of this horrible tragedy was just amazing. you mentioned that crime victim funds are a last resort for at a times, and when the states run out of federal dollars victims often pay the price. last congress i introduced legislation to ensure that survivors of sexual assault are never charged for the cost of their rape kit exam. i find it appalling that

sometimes states bill victims or force them to apply for insurance coverage before seeking reimbursement. as one who works with victims of sexual assault, do you think the practice of billing victims of sexual assault makes victims more unlikely to report their crimes? >> i certainly agree with you that charging victims for things like medical forensic exams is simply unconscionable. we should not be shifting those burdens on though victim. i'm not sure whether or not that would be a deterrent to a victim coming forward, but i do know that it certainly can be a hardship for victims but also there a emotional burden that comes with that. having to pay for a medical forensic exam after you've been raped or sexually assaulted is very, very difficult for victims and it feels like an additional victimization at times. >> thank you very much. and thank you, madam chair.

>> senator whitehouse, you ready? >> thank you, madam chair. i want to thank the panel very much for being here for their testimony and for their service, particularly those who have been prosecutors and u.s. attorneys and so forth, thank you, ms. leary. i just want to get your reactions to the news that has come out about the extent to which the cuts that have recently been agreed to have focused on victims of crime in the department of justice budget. and what your advice is to all of us to try to prevent that damage from having too much impact on the victims that, frankly, are prototypical innocent victims of this. and there's no reason that they should be bearing the cost here. but it looks like they will be. so have you had the chance to

analyze yet how deep those cuts will go and to what extent they may affect programs and grants that support what you're doing right now? >> looking at me, senator -- oh, sorry. >> i'll go right down the line. but let's start with you. >> we haven't had a chance to do a full able lissy. i too read the article in the "new york post" saying that they'd been cut by the fund. but we later learned to our relief that that is not the case, it's an accounting issue. so we were very relieved to hear that. and that in fact the amount of funding in the crime victims fund will remain the same for this coming year. so that they'll have the same amount of money to work the

programs. but there were other cuts, you know, in other parts of the department of justice that may have an impact. we haven't will a chance to analyze yet -- you know, there's a percentage cut across the board. so it really depends on how that plays out. for instance, there are programs in the bureau of justice assistance that augment the work of the office of victims of crime in things like training law enforcement and we all know that a victim's first encounter with law enforcement, that's first person that a victim may encounter. research shows that that can have a significant impact on how that victim moves forward, whether that victim is able to move forward towards recovery. we haven't had a chance to analyze all that yet, but there may be some impact. >> just so you know, i've heard the same thing that you have, that the reduction from 6 billion to 1 billion is an accounting adjustment and would not have immediate effects in

the actual expenditures that are available so the victims of crime group in the department of justice. and i hope that's true. but when you see big money moving around like that, it's hard to imagine that it could actually have as little effect. you think that that would have disappeared already somehow if it was a purely accounting trick. so i'm watching carefully to see that. >> well, i'm glad that it's being watched very carefully. as i mentioned in my testimony, the downturn in the economy, the economic recession, has had tremendous impacts on the local and state levels. in arizona, at least two organizations that serve victims have closed their doors including a family advocacy center serving a rural area in our state. other agencies across the board pretty much have had to cut services to victims because of decreases in state and local income coming in for victims of services. so the concern here is that these agency depend on federal moneys at this moment to keep

their doors open. voca funding, vola funding is incredible important for these victim services organization. if that money should go away, we would see or be reduced in any way, we would see further cuts in services. the safety net is beginning to crumble at the local level in many cases. >> ms. garvin? >> just quickly, my understanding is that it is an offset also. but even if it's an offset and an accounting thing, i would appreciate if a close eye was kept on it. because even as an offset and accounting maneuver then rhetorically we have less funds in that congress won't be raising the cap in victims services. even if the exact amount will come back to the field as came out in prior years, that's not enough for the field. and we're seeing the ramifications of that right now. we have to keep a close eye on it. but also the victims fund is victims money and that's where it should be going.

>> thank you all very much for what you do and your testimony. thank you madam chair. >> thank you. senator grassley, you're up. >> i complained to the chairman that -- ms. gar vin, can you tell me about the effect that the cap on the crime victims fund has had on victims to whom you provide services? >> the services that they provide are funded through two streams. the federal crime victims rights act has an authorization for appropriations in it and some money has come directly through appropriation to fund some of our work, although that has not happened since 2008.

then other funds have come through grant programs including voca through the office for the victim of crime and the cap, i would say, what was happening to our services and services nationally is that there isn't enough money making its way out to the field. we know that victims have more needs than are being funded. we know that the legal clinics that we oversee are going to shut down this year, and that victims, including victims in the tucson shooting will not have an attorney with them as of july of this year, actually, that clinic will not have funding to continue and to provide representation. so the cap is putting restrictions on the services that are available. >> i want your judgment of whether or not you think it makes sense for us to create new crime victim programs before the existing programs that are now being shortchanged are fully funded? >> well, as has been spoken about this morning already, those programs that are providing good services and have been tested and are evidence

based, they should continue being funded. our program has been tested. we have been evaluated. other programs around the country have been also. those should be funded first, because that's a promise we already made to victims. looking forward and creating new programs is a visionary thing to do, but not at the sacrifice of the words and the promises we've already made to crime victims. >> ms. leary, the administration proposes only a small increase in the cap from the victim, crime victims fund, and it would zero out the federal victim notification system, which i said in my statement notifies crime victims when an individual who committed that crime is released. nurt further it would reduce the budget. do you support these cuts that the administration has proposed to victim notification and the national crime victimization survey? >> senator grassley, i think one of the things that the

department is thinking about is the impact of the vision 21 initiative, which is ongoing now, which is taking a comprehensive look at what we need to better serve victims going forward from here. and in the past, there have been piecemeal looks and you look at one piece of the system and you try and improve things there, then you look at another piece and you try to improve things there, but it doesn't work unless you look at the whole and you look at all of the kinds of programs that are needed and make decisions based on that. and that's exactly what we are doing. and i think out of that process will come a different way of looking at victims' services, proposals to fund all of those things that work that fit into that comprehensive view and to use the funds in the ways that are most appropriate for what we

know victims need. i totally agree, we need to avoid duplication of services. i think we need to help victim service providers learn more about how to base what they do on evidence. we need to help them learn how to increase their own capacity to serve victims in a smarter, more efficient way. >> i can't find fault with your survey and studying things and being evidence based and all that. but it seem to me that by doing to these two programs what they are doing, that they've already made a declaration that those programs aren't serving, so you thing that they'd wait until you and they would wait until the study is over before you reached a conclusion that, to me, puts priority on supporti ining crim victims as evidenced by these

proposed cuts. i'll go on to ask you this questi question. it will be my last one. despite the cuts that they mention, the administration proposes 135 million moral be spent on vines againviolence ag women. given the shortfalls in funding for crime victims that has been made clear today, do you believe that certain types of victims should take priority over others. and that's what i sent from the priority given to these programs. and i don't have anything wrong -- i don't see anything wrong with those programs, but i just seem to mi the that you ha greater priority. >> what we know, senator grassley, is that, in fact, right now, a good percentage of the voca funds go to victims of violence against women because, unfortunately, that's one of the

enduring challenges of the victim services field. there are so many overwhelming needs. you heard mr. burbank talk about the shelter in tucson having to turn away 12 women a week. the beds are full. the phones are ringing off the hook. we know the international network to stop domestic violence does a survey every year and they do a survey of the shelters and the crisis providers. the last snapshot they took, in that one day, these organizations had served 70,000 victims, women and children, for the most part. but they had to turn almost 10,000 away on a single day. so it's just that we already know that that is such a pervasive form of victimization with needs, unmet needs that are almost -- they're difficult to comprehend really because it's just so significant. we still need to do a lot more

in that arena, and that crosses all age lines, race lines, socioeconomic lines. >> thank you very much. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you. senator blumenthal? >> thank you, madam chairman. i have a question regarding longer term services. many of the victims advocate or victims services focus on short-term needs, as you know, and very rightly, deservedly so. my office has been working with a group called voices of september 11th, which does work on mental health screening and counseling and other kinds of case work. and provides, that group provides services in those areas. i wonder if you could talk about the strategy of your respective efforts in terms of dealing with the longer range services that

can be provided to crime victims? >> well, you know, speaking for the pima county attorney's office, you're right. we recognize not only the short term but the long term. the short term are met through our on-screen crisis intervention work. so when we actually go out at the request of law enforcement to work with those victims as we did on the shootings at the safeway and then followed up at the hospitals, but we provide victims with support throughout the entire criminal justice system. a big piece of what we're doing is not only the criminal justice system advocacy, but as you mentioned they have lots of other needs. and making time to make sure that those advocates are well versed in what community resources are available, getting them connected with victim compensation funds that can help fund some of those mental health as well as other health needs for these victims is crucial. in this case, because of the nature that it's both a federal

case as well as a state case, these victims, most likely, will be in the criminal justice system for at least five years and potentially much longer than that. as we know, for example, with the oklahoma city bombings. and we also know that after cases conclude, many of these wounds still are there for these victims. and they have needs that go on for years and years and years. and so it is a very important part. and i'm glad that you're focusing time and energy to look at the ongoing and long-term needs of victims. so thank you for that. >> i would like to echo that that i appreciate the focus on that. i know in our work so far in vision 21, one of the thing that we have noted that's coming from the field is this long-term care for victims is critical. what our services, some of the cases that our lawyers are working on are is there's an oregon case, a habeas case where a woman was stabbed 18 year ago and the habeas proceeding was just file and she was ordered to go to deposition 18 years after

her stabbing. we needed to have a lawyer for her there in that moment not just in the original prosecution. the ongoing care is critical as well as continuity of care making sure the same programs that she or he as a victim have developed a relationship with are there when they need services five, ten, 15, even 20 years later is critical. >> yes, senator. thank you for that question. i'm familiar with the september 11th organizations from my work at the national center for the victims of crime and i know that joy frost, who is the acting director of the office for victims of crime is very familiar with that -- excuse me -- with that organization. and they are -- they represent -- excuse me -- the significance of those kinds of needs, those long-term needs. and as meg said, there's a lot of focus on that through the vision 21 initiative. i'd like to add that we need

more research into this arena as well. so that we have a much better understanding of the impact of crime over the long term. what are the mental health issues that can arise? what are the emotional kinds of issues? what kind of an impact does your victimization, you as an individual, what kind of an impact does that have on your family, on your loved ones over the long term? it's hugely significant. and many victims, including the september 11th victims have spoken to us about the pain of people treating them as if they should just have gotten over it by now. that's just not the case. and unfortunately, our society still is rather insensitive about that. >> my time has expired, but i just want to commend you and thank you for the great work that you're doing and

particularly as we celebrate this month, thank you very much for all you're doing. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. and i want to thank all of you for being here on this important day. it's the 30th anniversary of the first national crime victims rights week. we have come a long way, despite the challenges that we're facing now. i know in my own office that i used to head up, the hennepin county attorney's office and i met your counterpart and the county attorney's office there and the domestic rights center where we really had a one-stop shop and still do under county attorney mike freeman for victims of domestic assault where not only there prosecutors and police but the shelters and others are there to help them with their needs. i've been a big believer in

this. we did surveys in our office and found that obviously while the results are important and cases and convictions were important, just as important and sometimes more important to the victims were how they were treated in the system. and so many times that word victims interface were their interface because the prosecutors would be off doing cases. so beyond the things that i think people think about in terms of hoterm s help and counseling and services just having people with them through the process so they felt it was fair, even if a case had to be dismissed because there wasn't enough evidence or because a plea had to be taken that wasn't exactly what they wanted in the first place, having a victims rights advocate there gave them faith in the system and made for such better cases so that victims and witnesses felt comfortable about going forward and didn't back out at the last minute testifying because they had someone there for them. so i just want to thank all of you for all the good work that you're doing. i have questions, first of all,

ms. leary, about the vision 21 process. i was thinking as we talked about the funding and some of the cuts that we're concerned about and will continue to advocate for the funding to be there, you mentioned in your testimony that one area that vision 21 is likely to tackle improving data collection and research on victimization issues and i think data can help not only with finding the most effective program so we're making sure that the money is going where it should but also to support the work that's being done. could you talk about that data collection aspect of vision 21? >> yes. the vision 21 groups have, i think, really focused in on the need for research and data collection because there's an awful lot about victimization and particularly among

underserved victim populations that we don't know. you know, underreporting of crime is a huge problem. so we have to figure out how do you get at that? and you know it's really interesting 30 years ago the underreporting was exactly the same statistic as today? i found that quite astounding. so we know that's unlikely to change dramatically going forward. so we've got to find ways to collect our data without relying strictly on reported crime or convictions and so on. and that's one of the things that the national crime victimization survey attempts to do. but you know, the survey's been in existence for quite some time. i know that jim lynch who heads up the bureau of justice statistics is actually looking at a redesign of the survey and has been working on that. because we have to kind of come into the 21st century and figure out better ways of getting folks

to respond to the questions about victimization. and we need to find ways to collect data from populations that have traditionally just been left -- either left out or have withdrawn. native american populations a good example. young african-american males. we know very little about that type of victimization other than what you read, you know, in the metro section of "the washington post," the sort of sensational crime that get covered. but we don't know that much about the process of victimization and the needs of those victims and so on. that's another group. we don't know -- we know almost nothing about victims who are in institutional settings. that's where you're going to find your victims of elder abuse of all kinds. you will find your victims who

have mental health issues or developmental challenges. we don't really know anything about that group. particularly when you think about the elderly, those 85 and above are the fastest growing segment of this population. we cannot afford not to know about that. >> yes. i also took note when you talked about the technology and the changing nature of crime. i actually have a bill with kay bailey hutchison about updating our stalkers legislation and the cyberlegislation that's on the books that's very outdated, to reflect cases like we had in the last year with the newswoman who was undressing and someone filmed her, then put it out on the internet. it was actually hard for the u.s. attorney's office to put a case together in that case. and they did it, but it could be made a lot easier if we updated our laws, electronic surveillance.

along those lines, you said that vision 21 would address how the latest technology could be leveraged to transform how we reach and serve victims. could you talk about that? >> one of the huge gaps that's been identified by vision 21 is in the capacity of victim service providers. their technology is so unsophisticated because they barely have mon ll lly have fun staff, they don't have the funding around for prayings oper how can we reach out to victims in a rural area, which i'm sure plenty of those in minnesota, how do we connect to those victims who are far away? how do we connect to those victims with our language barriers and cultural barriers that technology could actually facilitate bridging those gaps,

translation services and things of that nature. how can we use technology to meet victims where they're at, not just geographically but culturally? and in terms of the technology that those victims use? if you read those pew studies, you'll find that certain segments of the population are much more likely to use a particular type of technology than others. for instance, in chicago, the hispanic community there is much more likely to be using a cell phone than a computer, which i learned from pew when i was working on a project with the chicago police department out there and trying the figure out how you could engage the community. you can't just rely on those, you know, beat meetings every two weeks. how do you reach out? you need to find the kind of technology that they relate to that they actually use. >> very good. mr. burbank, you describe the

crime scene on january 8th and that horrible day when so many people were senselessly gunned down. could you tell us -- i think people think this is just like magic. the victims people there. could you tell us about the kind of training that goes into building a victims advocacy division? >> absolutely. you're right. it just doesn't magically appear. it takes a lot of work to put this together. we're fortunate, as i mentioned, to have 35 years of experience doing this. what it looks like is we actually send our volunteers through almost the identical training for our staff paid positions because we rely on those volunteers to do the exact same work as a staff person. they have to be ready out in the field to respond to any type of crime at any time day or night. so we send them through 36 hours of basic crisis intervention training that's actually available to anyone in the metro area of tucson to partake in if they want.

then on top of that, they go through an advanced course that's about 30 hours of advanced training. then they do essentially on-the-job training. a very long process. we ask for at least a year commitment from folks and we ask for 20 hours a week -- i'm sorry, 20 hours a month. 20 hours a week would be a lot, wouldn't it? >> people think obviously with budget crunches we should use more volunteer. i think that's a good idea. we have interns in our office when i was the only senator for eight months, we had to use a lot of interns because we couldn't add any staff to the budget. but what people don't understand is you still need training and you still need people to oversee the volunteers. >> absolutely. it cannot all be done with volunteers. we make an amazing use of volunteers in our program and we're proud of that, but the reality is we need to have staff overseeing those volunteers, training those volunteers.

it is an enormous commitment of time and energy to be able to maintain this volunteer pool and provide these services. >> you want to answer that question as well how volunteers are critical to the work and then how we could utilize volunteers and how they still have to be supervised and trained? >> absolutely. as i mentioned in my testimony, they have 11 clinics operating around the country. but we've been trying to compliment that by growing a national pro bony pool of attorneys and advocates. we put them through training, so the name of that is the national alliance of victims rights attorneys. we have almost a thousand members right now. but what's critical is we can have an attorney anywhere in the country but they've not had the training on what victims rights are. any of the lawyers in room and as i know you know from law school, the word "victim" and victims rights does not show up in the law school curriculum

even today. so training lawyers how to represent victims is a pretty intensive process. we're working on it, trying to have lawyers around the country know how to do it and know how to do it without revictimizing victims, but it takes intensive work and we have to keep at it. >> the model we had in our office in hennepin county, the norm, we had 20 people, 30, who were nonlawyer. a few were lawyers. that were basically the victims' contacts. it didn't mean the prosecutors weren't working with victims, they were. but it actually saved a lot of their time so they could actually do the cases. these were all felony level cases, so we were able to do it that way. to me, it saved money in the long term because the prosecutors could focus on the cases and keeping up with their case work and the victims rights advocates handled the number of victims for teams of attorneys. >> so that model within a prosecutor's office is a great model. it allows the prosecutor to do the prosecution.

it allows the victim advocate within the system to help navigate for the victims. but the complimentary model is to also have community based legal advocacy that can liaison with the prosecutor's office and protect victims rights. it saves money to have those because of the long-term care aspects that have been talked about. if they give victims wrap-around services good prosecution, good prosecution based victim advocates, we help reduce the trauma that they experience going through the system. >> we did kind of a comment. the domestic victims had their own people with domestic service center and then we will the property team, actually, was community based. they handled things by area. and so they had people that dealt with it that way and the rest were in specialty areas of types of crime. but i found it to be incredibly helpful. more than just holding hands. it was actually helping to get

these cases running and make sure the victims were there on ti time. i still remember talking to one of our victims' advocates and she had a white collar case and she was a widow and her husband was ripped off by someone that took all their money and went to costa rica and got a face-lift. i remember saying to her, at least you're not dealing with the murder case they got down the hall. and she goes, are you kidding? this woman has basically threatened to kill the perpetrator in the case, the face-lift case. and remind me that for victims of crime every case is important and that people need someone by their side to calm them down and make sure the criminal justice system is fair. so anyway, i want to thank you. what law firm did you work with in minnesota? >> mazlan edelman. >> you can't lie because you're on the record.

i have many friends there. i want to thank all of you. we have a lot of work to do. you see a committee that's devoted to victims rights here. certainly chairman leahy is, a lot of former prosecutors on our committee who understand how this works and how important it is. and we'll continue to advocate for you as we deal not only with the budget but with the reauthorization and other bills that we have going forward. thank you so much, so much of the work you do is in the trenches. people never know the hard decisions that victims rights advocates have to make and the wrenching stories that they have to hear, and then they've got to go home and be with their families and smile and pretend everything was okay during the day when it really wasn't. i just want to thank you for the work that you're doing in the justice system and the help that you give people.

it is pretty clear cut. will congress continue to have one provider of voice telephone service regulated and not have others regulated? that is the issue. the commission is given this little area to look at. there is no wire line competition.

it is set to congress to say if there is competition -- some wireless, come cable provider -- let's get out of the business of regulating that particular offering. >> in my view -- then i will step back and moderate -- there are a lot of things congress just does not do. take the case of these decisions you refer it to. they have to do with how you evaluate evidence. that is what i mean all night talk about evidentiary types of presumptions. they might shift the burden in a way that could make forbearance -- when we refer to forbearance, we are talking about the ftc's authority and not to apply a regulatory provision if it makes certain findings. do you want to add anything on this forbearance subject?

>> the issue of presumption. it should be decided on the evidence. based on my years as a litigator, evidentiary resumption is easy to get around. what really matters is having a fair and impartial decision makers rather than setting up evidentiary presumption. it people are calling it that -- calling it fact, you will not get as good a decision. i think i in theory i understand the point you're trying to make. >> i appreciate that you understand it.

the -- if things are very close and you are getting close to a jumpball, based could go either way. the resumption shorts of ships it into a regulatory direction. that is just might view. i want to pose this question to you and then we will go to the audience. there is something that was mentioned -- the sunshine act. it requires no more than two members of the five member commission can meet together to discuss issues. when the commissioners do want to communicate, there are a lot of circular meetings among them and their staffs. we are familiar with that.

commissioner cox has advocated changing the sunshine act for many years. i did a report on that about 15 years ago and suggested some changes. i know michael powell did. chairman jankowski has spoken to this issue. he has a view -- maybe you could tell it what it is or what your view is on changing the sunshine act. >> he has not expressed a view on the subject. congress will take that up. this is entirely based on my own personal experience. i have been in two institutions that involve a group decision making. the ftc and the supreme court. the supreme court does not have restrictions on how the justices to communicate with each other. based the my personal

observation, having to rule against more than two people were not having to rule has meant that one institution has better internal deliberation than another. but both advantages and disadvantages. a lot of this is through the personalities are, what the chairman does -- he moves with great frequency to make sure they have ample opportunity to talk about these issues. the other commissioners are arranged their own meetings with each other. it is a cumbersome system. i am not sure that it is preventing effective deliberation and discussion within the commission. i have seen situations that do not foster great collegiality and may not fostered good

decision making. it is a good decision -- discussion on both sides. the chairman has not expressed a view. i am sure he would welcome the opportunity to talk to chairman stearns or others about the proposal. >> do any other panel members want to speak on these two subjects we just discussed? do any of you have any reactions you want to state? >> i would just add one thing to forbearance. the question you posed is a good one. it is responsive to years of litigation that we have all lived under. it is entirely appropriate for congress to consider as a result of that litigation eight weight -- the way the statute operates is in compliance with the intent of the original statute.

for some reason, i think we have focused a lot on outdated regulations or statutory provisions in title ii. i think that is fair. to the extent that we have a tool -- something that is a more incremental in the ability to remove statutory obligations or regulations -- it makes little sense to me that you are restricted to one type of service or another -- we have provisions in title vi of the act, obligations that date back before the internet was a science project. we have a chance for congress to address that directly or through ensuring that the tools that are available through the forbearance process clarifies that we really should not pick and choose between services when we talk about regulation.

quite a that is a great point. -- >> that is a great point. in section 629, this navigation advice of 40 -- navigation device -- you describe the competitive environment in india. the sunset act provision right in that statute is fairly unique. you do not find it in other places in the litigation act or other statutes. it was obviously but there as a tool. the commission's authority argued it was competitive developments. that is another example of where

you have to accompany those tools with a type of evidenciary resumption. it can be rebuttable. you can so there is not sufficient competition or the public interest is not served. it essentially when things are close, it shifts it one way. >> i want to get back to the sunshine law for a second. i think that was in the 96 act. >> that was the 76 act. just to be clear about it, it is not only applicable to the sec, it is a government-wide requirements. >> i think it is something they need to look at. i think it goes to the fact of the kind of commissioner you will see nominated to those positions.

if you were able to meet your fellow commissioners, even commissioners appointed under republican or democrat presidencies -- if it does not work, they do not have to meet. if it does work, they had the opportunity to meet. the idea of adding a bipartisan group that is meeting, i think that is a good thing. at the end of the day, what i think it would do -- you would find commissioners more in tune with policy that the fcc has responsibility for as opposed to politics. at the end of the day -- i know working in the communications aspect -- it is not a partisan

issue. we do not talk about partisan ideas. we are about moving businesses forward, about competing, about an abating services. we can talk to democrats about it. we can talk to republicans about it. we do not care. they do not have to meet. making it available may be would reshape the type of candidate that would be looked at for fcc commissioners. >> that is an excellent point. >> i think it is important for the audience to note that well over 90% are adopted unanimously. that is one of the great things about telecom. most of what we do is something that you can build a consensus around. of course there are hot-button issues were that is not true.

there are strong disagreements between industry segments -- things like that. when you talk about the collaboration with the commission, it is important to note that more than 90% of what we do is unanimous. >> since we are talking about the spirit of collaboration, commissioner cox wrote a statement about three weeks ago. there is a bill introduced on the hill to change the sunshine act provision along the lines that steve mentioned -- if you have a bipartisan group that could meet. commissioner cox issued a statement raising that. the next days -- there are praising commissioner cox and the fact he job on this issue. i do not have date -- i do not

have the opportunity to praise commissioner cox that often. he called me later that day as he does on the rare occasions when i praise him. he said, "this sunshine act is important. we have to figure out a way to get it done." i assured him i wanted to do that as well. ok. let's turn to the audience for questions or suggestions for reform. who wants to go first? do not be shy. i remember people in the audience who have been doing communications policy for quite a while. i have a couple more -- i will ask another question in a minute if no one else has any.

does anybody have a question or a suggestion? if not, we will wrap it up in a couple of minutes. another topic that seems to be high on a lot of people on the list in terms of action for reform is in the merger-review process. people have different views about it. my own view is that it is an area ripe for reform. one of the reasons i think there is quite a bit of duplication -- i know there are two different standards and the justice department operates on a competition standard -- there is a lot of duplication of effort. it isay's environment, something worth looking at.

i think there are a lot of people that believe that the process that leads to the " voluntary concessions" that are easily put forward very late in the day of what could be a year- long process, that coming so late and the parties are anxious to get them through, there is something unseemly about that. the commission operating under this mandate means of whatever three commissioners say that it means, there is no condition that one can imagine that might not meet the public interest. i want to ask the panelists, because there seems to be a growing momentum for reform in that area.

meredith baker outlined some reforms about the shot clock and the commitments. does anyone want to tackle merger reform -- either support it or oppose it? >> i strongly support it. if you look historically at the communications model, it is based on the transportation model. the department of jasper station had jurisdiction with airline mergers. not anymore. probably only our industry and the communications industry are the only industries that are left with the inquiry is not competitive harm. the inquiry is something else or we find no competitive arm,

but it is not in the public interest. what is communications policy? we do not really know what these things are going to do. i believe that with regard to merger reform, i think that meredith baker's remarks were very good. i think the equerry should be narrowed. it should link directly to competitive harm. i do not think there should be deposited at merger reviews. i think this is an area where i would hope that the fcc would exercise restraint. i think it is important for congress to clarify the rules of the industry. we do not need to have central state planning or industrial policy agencies called upon to

engaged in planning or industrial policy in the context of merger reviews. >> michael? >> as the representative of the public interest organization, i would defend the public interest standard a little bit. it is different and important for two reasons. one is that many of these mergers involved unique public resources. there is a unique role beyond is this a competitive or not for the fcc. another thing is many of these mergers involved crucial avenues for speech. speech as a special place in our society. it is worth taking a moment to do a review of mergers that will impact how freely speech can flow. with that being said, the current merger process is not free of flaws or problems.

one of the dance is the reliance on the voluntary agreements to hang merger agreements on the conditions of the merger. at some point there needs to be a recognition that some mergers cannot be solved with conditions. there are no number of conditions that can make a merger in the public interest. we have pages and pages of conditions, especially conditions that by and large expire after a couple of years. it may be time to look at the underlying merger and say it is not in the public interest. as a corollary to that, sometimes merger conditions are used to impose policy that is not specific to the merging entity. many people in this room will agree with that. it distorts the regulatory universe.

the policy is important enough that we think that it should be used in the merger and we hope it will influence the other actors in that field. we have to say that this is not a merger condition, it is an industry-wide practice. it is important, do it that way. if it is not that important and a merger is an excuse to try out, maybe a merger condition is not the right place for something like that. >> i agree with that last one wholeheartedly. >> we obviously have a very large merger in front of us. i will say this -- it is important to conduct -- we have a statutory mandate. there will be arguments made for and against whether it is the right statutory mandate, to

review whether the transaction serves the public interest. our purpose is to carry out that mandate and it is important to do it in a thorough, fair, and open way. we stand by our record on this in terms of the transactions conducted so far under this chairman. that is all we will do it going forward. >> your statutory mandate you are referring to is to review mergers under the public interest. what i would say is that is indeterminate enough that there is room for self-restraint by the agency, may be more self- restraint than the agency has used in the past. [laughter] you have a question? >> i want to rephrase what you said. you refer to statutory mandate.

[unintelligible] your decisions versus preconceived notions. what facts do you need to determine [unintelligible] d make the determination because the market dictates a is necessary? >> time would not allow a full answer to that question, but i would refer you to our website. it contains page after page of data and analysis to support what are basically status quo rules of the road. it amounts to one page of rules.

we basically agreed to be reasonable by a wide swath of the industry. when you think about pro or and tight business, you will find that everyone except the encumbrance asked us to put legal justifications into the record. i would welcome attention to the orders. they contain the justification. >> what about the statutory mandate? given the comcast decision last year, how did they determine [unintelligible] >> dozens of pages of law explain exactly where the legal authority comes from. that will be decided in court, whether we are right or wrong. title iii provides the authority.

we are challenged almost every time we issue an order. >> we are only going to take one more question. if there is a question. if not, i just want to say that we put together this program my hope was that we would start or carry on and provoke further discussion on regulatory reform and institutional reform at the fcc and get out some ideas. with that hope, now that we are concluding, i can say that my hope was fulfilled even beyond my expectations. i think this was terrific. i want to thank c-span for being here and the c-span audience for joining us. i hope you'll join us in thanking our panelists here

today. [applause] we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> next, a senate hearing on nasa's 2012 budget. live at 7:00 a.m., your calls and comments on "washington journal." this week on a road to the white house, potential republican presidential candidate donald trump in boca raton, florida. he spoke at a tea party rally. wrote to the white house today at 9:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> now available, c-span's

congressional directory, a complete guide to the one under 12 congress. inside, new and returning house and senate members with compaq information including twitter addresses, district maps, and committee assignments. order online at c-span.org/shop. >> nasa administrator, charles bolden, testified about the process of who would get a retired space shuttle. would freezet spending at 2010 levels. this hearing is one hour and 25 minutes.

>> the subcommittee on science will come together. today, we take the testimony of administrator hon. astronauts and general charles boden for

the fy12 request and talked- about how this might be in light of what we have just gone through. the administrator, we are glad to see you. we want to thank you for coming and we remind you that this hearing normally ours on thursday morning but we could not get you when we thought we could. nator kay bailey hutchison and i did not wish to delay the hearing because it would have taken us after the easter- passover recess ande wanted to be able toeally get cracking on our 2012 appropriations. we think you for doing this. we look forward to your testimony. i am glad to see you and glad to be here.

both of us, all of us were declared essential. but we just went through last week was a cliffhanger and it rattled many people. it certainly rattled us. we felt it would have been a disaster had we had a shot down for the economy and the reputation of the united states of america. we have now been called upon to accept $78 billion of cuts from ,he president's 2011 request $39 billion below the 2010 level. that was the marquee have given us. havell of our staff's worked through the night and i would like to thank senator staff.on -- hutchinson's we allorked etty tirelessly

to meet our obligations to be able to report out a bill in the subcommittee but tonight at midnight. we want to hear from you about where you think that you are. we are very proud of nasa. this is the 50th anniversary of president kennedy's call to send a person to the moon and return them safely. from our human space flight, the visit to the moon, the vision to go further, we are so oud of what we have done with human spaceflight and we look forward to supporting human space flight initiatives. when we look ahead at space science, the hubble space telescope, to others in the area of earth science, planetary science, protecting power, it is all important.

we know that what nasa doe is part really creating the new ideas for the innovation of the economy. in a speech to the maryland roundtable come every time nasa goes soft, it takes the american economy with us. nasa is about innovation and drugs. last year, congress gave nasa a new path forward. the ranking member and i worked with senator bill nelson -- nelson on a new authorization bill. are like to complement the gentle lady from taxes with what she and council member nelson were able to achieve. it met the priorities of the president in the space coalition here in the senate. we need investments in science and aeronautics, but we also must remember we want human

space flight to be sustainable. we need to go to the international space station and also broadening our human reach beyond earth orbit with the o'brien capsule and a heavy lift rocket. we have a lot of ambitions and now we are trying to see if we have the wallet to match. who will work tirelessly to implement and balanced space program. last year, we agreed to 19 billion. it will not come out quite that way, so far this year, we are anticipating an appropriation, if we stick to the president's request, at $18.70 billion. the signs request is 5 billion and we also need to make sure that important projects like that do not get out from under us, like the james webb

telescope and there is more in the questioning. i am also concerned about aeronautics research. believe we are falling behind in that area. our european counterparts are making very heavy investments in the aeronauticsesearch and they would like to dominate civilian aeronautics. well, i'm just not thinking it is fun to go to the paris air show to hear what they are doing. i want america to go because we are the best of the best. we know that the budget requests to $20 billion for a new rocket andy o'brien capsule for the human space flight program we have to take a good look at that. we are also very impressed with

what is going on, however, with how this relates to cargo. we think that will be a very big success story and we will be able to take cargo through on manned space -- unmanned flight. we will maintain accountability and oversight, but we want to get to you rather than my opening statement. i rned to the ranking member, and we have worked andnow for three terms, have we not? we are definitely colleagues here on this matter. i turned over to senor kay bailey hutchison. >> thank you, madame chairwoman. you have, indeed, been a partner in trying to make the very best efforts for nasa in all of its missions. are particularly when they convene chairwoman's stock for

working with mine so closely to ensure that not sound does have a balanced plan going forwa that will achieve the results that we all want. thank you for coming in and as mentioned, we are at some very major anniversaries and some major crossroads. we are about to see the end of the nation's ability to lost r -- launched our own astronauts into space. the spa shuttles have serd us well for 30 years a made it possible to constct an amazing science platform in space, the international space station. while nasa should be making plans to fully utilize the station, i do not think tt is happening. we could be wking with our international partners, universities, and with companies that could capitalize on our unique national lab in space.

it was the commerce committee in our authorization that created are part of the space station as a national lab in order to attract private and university, academic funding for research. that is just beginning to bear fruit. now i see the administration placing our investments in the space station and its capabilities at risk as well as our future exploration capabilities. once the shuttles are retired, we will be reduced to buying seats on russian vehicles for the foreseeable future. the russians have been our longtime partners with the space station, but we should not expect them to shoulder their space station program and hours when we should be able to do it ourselves. nasa has the arion capsule which has investigated to given time and resources in to carry our

astronauts. yet come to thisay, nasa is refusing to allow us to move forward. the president personally revived awry and last year and congress followed. we are reinstating it as a vehicle that will take us to an asteroid or back to the moon. i heard from your assistant administrators last month in t commerce committee that they unrstand that the authorization law directs the building of the capsule and a heavy lift vehicle. they know that orion fits the bill as a multipurpe crew vehicle and that it will take very little to modify contracts as allowed for in the authorization law. even the scope of the contract would need letter all -- little alteration. like the president, i have no problem continuing to call this a ryan, yet we see no movement from nasa to continue the program at all. this budget proposes only $1

billion for orion in the fiscal year 2012 while the authorized level for the same your calls for $1.40 billion and the plan for ongoing work prior to the knesset cancellation attempts would have had it at $2 billion. this deliberately hamstrings the ability for a ryan to reach our ability in 2016. the fiscal year 2012 of vision, offered as a variant of the authorization, is the creation of new prime contractors and providing them with the development funding. it is the hope of nasa that providing venture capital that they will then be able to usher in an era in space set off -- space exploration. there is little proof that what is being promised can be a reality. the commercial orbital transportation services program is beginning to show promise, but it is significantly behind schedule. last year, nasa proposes 60%

increa in funding to assure the program would be successful. because it had been slower to produce results, the one under 35 flight has now become critical for the near term viability of the space station. the nasa autrization leaves primary crew delivery vehicle to the space station open to coercial entities with o'brien as a backup. however, given the track record for cargo and masses underfunded budget proposal, the nation could find itsf with neither option available when our latest renegotiated contract with the russians and. what we have done is allow for a mix of government and commercial to cover all of our country's needs. nasa needs to find a proper and justified balance without putting our human space program at risk.

i know that commercial coanies could eventually become successful, but i do not feel that the information available justies such a large investment of federal dollars this year for commercial vehicles. i also believe that the same scrutiny that has been placed on our other manned vehicle should be applied to commercial kreuz to ensure the viability and safety of our astronauts is insured. mr. administrator, i will put the rest of my statement in the record, that i am hoping that we can establish a partnership going forward that it hears to the authorization wall, that is a balance, that provides the funding for commercial vehicles, but not at the expense ohaut- rhin and all the capabilities key is what we have already spent millions to do going forward. thank you, madam chairman, and i yield back to you.

>> i would like to acknowledge the presence of the senator sherrod brown from ohio. do you want to say something or will you wait? >> first off, thinking for welcoming me to the subcommittee in allhe jurisdictions a nasa is particularly important to me. i preciate you coming to cleveland a number of times and speaking at the city club and laying out an exhibition. i am concerned, as i know we all are, at what the budget may look like in the months ahead with h.r. 1, the paul ryan budget introduced in the house last week, and with the fervor on tax cuts that seems to be sweeping some parts of the house and senate and what it will mean on funding one othe most important parts of the federal government, the innovation, the research, the mission's

committee aeronautic advantage that we have had as a country for cades. would to make sure we continue to be leading, but if we're going to cut taxes and continue to cut taxes on the wealthiest people and continue to undersnd the important parts of government, and we will lose that scientific age. -- the scientific edge. i know that each you are helping us to not lose that and i appreciate your work. thank you, madam chair. >> administrator? >> chairwoman and ranking member, good afternoon and it thank you for the opportunity to discuss the nasa fiscal year 2012 budget request. thank you to be here -- thank you for being here, senator brown. as chair, you continue to provide critical leadership and oversight of our nation's space program. i would like to recognize a longtime member of the commander, senator kay bailey hutcheson, as ranking member of the subcommittee.

i want to think both of you and the members of the said committee for the longstanding suort that you have given to nasa. we have a common passion for science, aeronautics, and space exploration and the benefits they bring our nation. i look forward to continue to work together in the same collegial fashion as we have in the past. it is my privilege today to discuss the president's fiscal year 2002 budget request of $18.70 billion by nasa. recognizing the president's commitment to fiscal restraint, i am pleased we are proposing to hold funding at the level appropriated for fiscal year 2010. the fiscal year 2012 budget request continues the agency's focus on a reinvigorated path of innovation and technological discovery leading to an array of challenging destinations and emissions that engage the public. madam share, you and each member of the said committee should have two charts before you to which i call your attention.

chart #1 is the pie chart and shows at a very high level discussion of nasa's proposed fiscal year 2002 budget which represents a balanced and integrated program. the nasa authorization act of 2010 has given the agency a clear direction. nasa is moving forward to implement the details of that with fiscal year 2002 budget. as you can see in charge two, the present's fiscal year to dozens of budget request for nasa funds all major elements of the nasa authorization act was supporting a diverse portfolio of key programs. these are tough of fiscal times and we have had to make some tough, difficult choices. reductions have been necessary in some areas so that we can invest in the future will living within our means. this must request and maintains a strong commitment to human space flight,, aeronautics, and the development of new technologies along with

education programs that will help us win the future. it carries out programs of innovation to support long-term drawbaugh growth and a dynamic economy that will help us out innovate, and educate, and out build everyone in the world. along with their fiscal year 2002 budget request, we published our 2000 tow strategic plan. if you or your staff does not have it, we will make sure we get a copy to everyone. the core mission of nasa remains the fundamentally -- remains fundamentally the same since our inception. it supports our vision, shown inside the strategic plan to reach new heights and reveal the on non said that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind. on march 9th, we completed the 133 mission, one of the final three shuttle flights to the international spe station. discovery delivered a robotic

crew member and supplies that will support the scientific research and technology demonstrations, that was a joke by the way? ok. we are currently preparing and ever for mission 134 which will delivered the of the magnetic spectrometer. it will enhance knowledge of the universe in to the understanding of the origins of the universe. this will be the 36 shuttle mission in the final flight of the endeavor. with t impending completion of the shuttle manifest, it is my pl to announce my decision regarding the recipients tomorrow, april 12th, 2011, on the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle flight. the space program continues to venture in ways that will have long-term benefits.

ere are many more milestones in the very near term. our priorities in human space flight in the 2012 budget request are to maintain safe access for american astronauts to lower orb as we will utilize the international space station, and to facilitate safe, reliable, and cost-effective u.s.-provided commercial transport for supplies as soon as possible and begin to lay the groundwork for expanding human presencen deep space the moon, asteroids, andventually mars to the development of a powerful heavy lift rocket, and pursued technology development to carry humans further into the solar system. these initiatives will enable american to maintain its position as a leader in space exploration for generations to come. at the same time, in our oer endeavors, the priorities are to extend our reached with

scientific observatories, to learn more about our home planet, the solar system, and look beyonthe origins of the universe. this budget requests of fondas of 56 national -- mass that missions and 20 more in the various stages of development. for one example, on marc17th of this year, after traveling more than six years and 4.9 billion mes, the nasa messenger space ship entered orbit around mercury. the messenger spacecraft august the first lo at the planet from orbit. it will help us understand the forces that shape it and provi a fundamental understanding of the terrestrial planets and their evolution. in addition, we will pursue groundbreaking research into the next generation of aviation technology and carry out dynamic education programs that help develop the next-generation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics professionals.

that is a lot, but nasa thrives in the big things. we have increased human knowledge in our discoveries and technologies have improved life on earth. in spite of the difficults we have encountered with the very critical james webb telescope, we have made changes in our management, increased oversight from my office, it continued to work to revise a space line by the end of april that will include options including likely funding some areas. the official plan will be submitted as part is the the part of the fiscal yr 2013 budget. i want to commend the nasa work force, both civil and contractors across the natio for their dedication tour missio during this time of transition and change. these workersre our greatest asset. they make us all proud. they fly understand the rest of our exploration and welcome the allenge. they will be the ones making tomorrow happen. in these are exciting and

dynamic times. the challenges ahead are significant, but so are the opportunities. we have to achieve big things at will create measurable pact on r economy, world come and way of life. i thank you again in appearing before you, and i look forward to taking your questions. >> thank you, administrator bolden. i know you have given us a former ample and detailed statement. i ask unanimous consent for all testimony that this detailed testimony be included in the record. >> thank you, ma'am. >> we have in other hearings. talking about askin administrators about the nsequences of the cr. rather than going into that

today here's wha i suggested. at midnight, the senate appropriations committee will produce their bill. as i understand it, it will be on the internet at appropriations.senate.gov. am i correct? >> i defer to you. >> it will come out around midnight. my suggestion to you is that when it comes out, i know you are going to scrub it to see what we did so that you know what you need to do. when you do that, it would be useful if you could share with senator hutchison, myself, and

senator cochran what that means in 2012. it will be speculate number games. we will consult with the leadership there. as full partners, scrub what we have done and tell us what it means for 2012. in effect, you will be below 2010. >> we will do that. proposedgo to 2012 as by the president and your advocay. -- advocacy. we want to joinhe goal in out innovating and out educating. we need to be critical of the money. i would like to raise questions abt those things that could be

targets for big cuts, particularly thoseho cannot spend the time like our colleagues at the table. let's start with the james webb telescope. it is scheduled to be 100 times more powerful than the hubble telescope, but we we troubled about its management and its use of money. we asked for a report which said it was technically sound but a week, meaning nasser, had a sense of urgency, but management was keeping on track for the deadlines and expenditures. u and i have had a private conversation about that, but could you tell us now what is now set doing to have a sense of urgency and that number two it has top-level attention and has not been delegated to the

coordinator of the coordinator of a coordinator and we now have this spectacular opportunity because, quite ankly, on a bipartisan basis, we cannot sustain technology with repeated cost overruns. the house will not put up with that. with no money to spare, we will not either. this telescope is important. tell us what you will do and what your management and urgency activities are. >> as a told you then, there was not anyone more disappointed and angry than i. when it got to the bottom of the situation, we found ourselves in trouble. we have moved with urgency. as i mentioned in my opening statement, the telescope

continues to make exceptional technological process. i have made some significant management changes in nassau of -- in nasa. i have delegated mht associate administrator to oversee the program for me and he meets with the team on a gular basis several times per week. he also meets with some of your staff year. the team consists of rick howard at nasa headquarters. the associate administrator for science and it goes directly to him now. i extracted it from its former division in astrophysics because was unfair to the program of that magnitude in the after physics division. >> what are you doing meeting with the private sector on building in? >> we are meeting with northman grumman.

they have made some management changes and i would def to them to explain to you what they have done, but we communicate with them on a routine basis. chris is usually talking to gary every week. >> you have the sound track. now, tell me. how much money is needed to keep webb on track for 2012? >> we are working to complete the bottoms up assessment that will allow us to bring in a baseline assessment hopefully by the end of this month. >> do you know? this is not argumentative or adversarial. i am trying to drill deeply on this issue. >> we honestly do not think that we need moneyn fiscal year 11 that will allow us to continue to carry the program to the point where we can make what we

think now is a reasonabllaunch date of 2018. if something happens and we find we have more funding in 2011, we will put it to use to accelerate the testing or some of the other developmental work. right now, we are looking at how much we needed to add it to 2012 from this committee. >> going back to the report, which now is advisory, they say they needed $500 million each year, 11 and 2012, and it is not there. >> i respect to the report. when we look at what they said anwhere we are in these fiscal times, i cannot responsibly bring myself to this commtee or any other and propose that someone tried to find $500 million for the foreseeable future. we are working at the baseline

and there will be some additional spending that will be required, but we have not arrived at that yet. we hope to have to an original estimate by the end of this month. >> my time is coming to a close and what my colleagues to be able to deliver does it fit. i know they have a keen interest. we have big tickets in human space flight and the telescope is a big ticket. we really appreciate the president at. $5 billion -- adding $5 billion -- yes? $5 billion to the science budget. we are going to live in the fiscal tim in a time of austerity being a very spartan. everyone here is for more frugal government. i am ready to be frugal, but i do not want to be foolish.

let me tell you what i am worried about that will be foolish. we scamp now and we then end up paying two or three times later. that is what i do not want to. i need a realistic picture because this is a rational group of people who work together. we needed to hear truly what is needed to and not what you think you can get the omb to agree to. or we can get the house or ourselves to agree to, but we need to know that. i also need to know that if we do not spend the money now, when will we spend it? will it ultimately cost us more? i think we have been around the track on some of these things. either they grow and become a boondoggle. i am concerned that if we do not do the right thing now and that it will cost us more in the future.

we really do need